MARCH 43 



attempt a reduction in the numbers that frequent the 

 shores of the British Isles. Nevertheless, when cor- 

 morants, isolated or in pairs, find their way, as they 

 often do, to small lakes or streams where there are 

 good trout, no pains should be spared to destroy 

 them ; else, when the birds leave, the lake or stream 

 will remain, but the trout will have disappeared. I 

 have known a cormorant disgorge a rainbow trout of 

 2^ Ib. when falling to the shot. Likewise, in salmon 

 rivers these ravenous pirates are specially destructive 

 in April and May, when the salmon smolts are migrat- 

 ing to the sea. Perhaps that is a reason for cormorants 

 postponing their nesting till June, when all kinds of 

 birds of exemplary character have hatched out. 



It is pretty and useful sport to conceal oneself beside 

 a river frequented by cormorants, and to pick them off 

 as they wing their swift, steady flight, always following 

 the bends of the channel ; for a cormorant ever likes 

 to have water under his keel, although in these flights 

 he seldom descends to a less altitude than forty feet. 

 Every bird so slain may be reckoned the salvation of 

 untold numbers of young salmon, for a cormorant's 

 daily ration of these delicacies must be reckoned in 

 scores. And the bitter reflection is that the creature's 

 gross appetite would be satisfied just as fully with an 

 equal weight of worthless chub or other coarse fish. 



Well, one spring morning two anglers proceeding 

 with their attendant gillies to their beat on the Helms- 

 dale, surprised a cormorant fishing in a short, round, 

 rocky pool, with a fall at the head thereof. The bird 

 dived at once, and it was determined to hunt him to 



